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DIY Grid Tied Syestem Installation Experience and Questions

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  • DIY Grid Tied Syestem Installation Experience and Questions

    Hello everyone! My first post on the forums I have always been interested in installing solar and in renewable energy in general. I am installing solar on my parent's house (currently i am an electrical engineering student) Anyways I thought I would tell a bit about our experience so far and ask any questions I may have for those who have been there done that. First off I will say the process has been lengthy and stressful to say the least. I live in Southern California Palmdale to be more specific. Our utility provider is Southern California Edison their process for grid interconnection is now relatively easy and straight forward they really don't require anything besides you filling out an agreement form and uploading documents and details about your system and provide a modern online way of completing the process. They do require the system to be permitted and inspected by the local AHJ or authority having jurisdiction, for us that is the City of Palmdale building and safety. This is where the headache begins. Its a shame how difficult and deterring Palmdale makes this process, they have not adopted any expedited permit process nor are they willing to work with owner builder installers. They insisted that homeowners can build any project on their own house and pull their own permits except solar. Of course they cant point me to anything that says so. On top of that their staff are very rude and belittling trying to make me feel as if I am not qualified or capable of performing the job. They thought they were going to turn me around and that I would never be back (little do they know I have over $4000 in solar equipment taking up my paring space in the garage). Needless to say I went back with all the documents they required except structural calculations which have to account for 110mph wind and a 20psf snow load. They insisted we needed an engineer with a wet stamp to approve these calculations which I know is a lie based on this topic. https://www.solarpaneltalk.com/forum...stamp-required Being in electrical these calculations and the drawings they were looking for were difficult for me to do so I hired an engineer James Adams who has a website called solar roof check which specifically does all these calculations and James will look over the data and provide a detailed report with his stamp for $200 which to me was a deal so I don't have to deal with generating these calculations myself (They look worse than my college physics courses). After proving all that and going back a third time they realized I wasn't going to give up and began to become irritated and frustrated with me (the supervisor inspector Chuck Jolin) so he sent out another inspector to deal with me who was very nice and took all my paperwork and said he will do a plan check and that we could get the permit as long as the plan check is ok. I paid the ridiculous price of $400 for the permit and that's where we are now. They also wont let us pull the permit ourselves insisting that a licensed contractor or electrician has to pull the permit which is also bogus. We have a family friend electrician who will go in to pull the permit for us though so its not a big deal. Has anyone else dealt with such a painful process? Also I am installing these panels on an exterior patio structure with asphalt shingles on the roof and want to know if flashings are required on the roof since its not really part of the house and when it rains water pools up below the patio anyways so i dont see the point (but the inspectors may disagree). I can't find anything that states of flashings are required for this circumstance or not. Thank you all for your suggestions and help,

    Jacob
    Last edited by jackbob; 07-23-2016, 04:49 PM.

  • #2
    Sorry your building department is inventing obstacles for you. Yes, you need the wet engineering stamps to have a safe install, but in California, homeowners can pull their DIY electrical. Sadly, to fight that in palmdale, is going to cost you a fortune, and then the city will just bulldoze your house and claim it was an accident. You should have heard about the "code enforcement" scam going on in the desert area with driveways, houses, art projects.... you won't win.
    Powerfab top of pole PV mount (2) | Listeroid 6/1 w/st5 gen head | XW6048 inverter/chgr | Iota 48V/15A charger | Morningstar 60A MPPT | 48V, 800A NiFe Battery (in series)| 15, Evergreen 205w "12V" PV array on pole | Midnight ePanel | Grundfos 10 SO5-9 with 3 wire Franklin Electric motor (1/2hp 240V 1ph ) on a timer for 3 hr noontime run - Runs off PV ||
    || Midnight Classic 200 | 10, Evergreen 200w in a 160VOC array ||
    || VEC1093 12V Charger | Maha C401 aa/aaa Charger | SureSine | Sunsaver MPPT 15A

    solar: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Solar
    gen: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Lister

    Comment


    • #3
      I understand your frustration and I (an engineer) have gone through similar circumstances with other AHJ's where each city requires a solar license. Very cumbersome.

      This is what I can relay to you. The NEC and AHJ's jobs are to make sure that no one gets hurt. They don't care if your system makes 1W of power. They are there to prevent fires and injury. They do not have the time to make carve outs for individuals, and you can respect that you have not finished your degree yet so a carve out would be a stretch.

      The permit fee was very cheap from what I pay.

      Water may pool up below the patio but the flashing's job is to keep the material under the shingles from rotting and eventually ruining the roof substructure. Not sure of your proposed layout but I would recommend looking into quickmount or Zilla rail-less racking. You will have a learning curve installing it but they are attractive and will are great attachment options for a good price.

      Comment


      • #4
        Don't take this personal, but building departments are constantly dealing with incompetent homeowners trying to do stuff themselves and they feel they have to protect people from themselves. There is a reason why electricians are required to be licensed. I'll be the first to rail against the over-regulation we have to put up with from AHJ's but my God, the dangerous stuff some people do that think they know electricity..... Learn to work with your building dept. because you won't win if you try to work against them.
        Attached Files
        BSEE, R11, NABCEP, Chevy BoltEV, >3000kW installed

        Comment


        • cebury
          cebury commented
          Editing a comment
          I never gave you permission to show my work product. I've since installed plenty of cable ties, it looks great...

      • #5
        We just had a radio tower installed, I wanted and am very capable to do it myself, but code was definitely ready to give me grief, so I hired a contractor with zoning and code dept. experience and got zoning and code approval on the first go. Had I done this myself, we would still be dealing with code approval.

        Comment


        • #6
          Thank you for all the responses! It is no doubt a pain to do it yourself as far as working with the AHJ goes. I understand they don't want to be liable for anything and I could only imagine the people who go in there thinking because they replaces a light switch, they are capable of installing their own solar. Most of the battle is already done (at least I hope) They are past the point of telling us no but i'm certain when I go to check up on the plan check they will give it back with a list of corrections they want made. I never would have even gotten a permit if I didn't absolutely need to. There are many small electrical projects including my electric vehicle charger I installed all without a permit. Solar is a bit different because SCE will not allow you to connect to their grid and will not allow you to sell excess energy without the system permitted. In this case there is no way around it. I will likely disconnect my ev charger and pretend it was never there for the inspection so I don't get any questions regarding that. I do have one more question about the shingles for anyone who may know. It makes sense that they are there to protect the material under the shingles from rotting. My question is what kind of flashings should I install for my roof it is different than any other shingle roof I have seen (I will post a picture below) There is almost no shingle exposure and no where to tuck a flashing under like I see in all the examples of flashings for solar. I am using a unirac solarmount rail system and already have all the parts except the flashings which unirac also sells but claim a maximum shingle exposure of 5.5". Can I just lay the flashing on top of the shingles in this case or how should it be done? The slope of the roof is less than 2 degrees just in case anyone is interested.
          Attached Files

          Comment


          • #7
            why did you chose the flat roof, as opposed to the roof that is actually angled in the direction of the sun? aesthetics?

            Comment


            • #8
              Originally posted by Logan5 View Post
              why did you chose the flat roof, as opposed to the roof that is actually angled in the direction of the sun? aesthetics?
              A few reasons aesthetics is a plus but not the primary reason (I personally like the look of solar panels). There are two main reasons one being I am not a roofing expert and do not want to be doing any roof work on the roof of our house. I'm sure I could install everything correctly on the angled roof but I know where to draw the line. I am well aware of the costs associated with roof and water damage in attics and would prefer not to take any chances if possible. There also is no 20 year roof warranty when you do it yourself! The second reason is we dont have the necessary equipment or knowledge to safely be working on the angled roof. We don't have any body harnesses or experience working on roofs like that. I am more than confident with working on the flat patio roof and there is plenty of room to work up there without constantly being worried about slipping off the angled roof. We are working with rather large 300w panels (Renogy RNG-300P) and they would be difficult to take up an angled roof for inexperienced installers. To sum it up my confidence in getting the job done safely and right is much higher working on the patio. The loss isn't too bad and the patio faces the path of the sun the whole day which is already a huge advantage over some of the angled roofs I see around here where they are only facing the sun in the morning or afternoon. I see these rolls of flashings at hardware stores some of them made of aluminum material others are asphalt rubbery material but i'm almost certain inspectors would not deem those proper flashngs.
              Last edited by jackbob; 07-23-2016, 06:39 PM.

              Comment


              • Logan5
                Logan5 commented
                Editing a comment
                Very well said. those looks like concrete tiles, our house also has similar tiles and also decided on the flat roof of our lanai. I also like the look of solar panels, but still decided on the flat roof due to shading. I did not install myself but kind of wish I had, as I have been very unhappy with the way the installed them. Good luck if you do decide to DIY

              • ButchDeal
                ButchDeal commented
                Editing a comment
                You have a slight roof pitch of what looks like 4/12 which is very easy to work on and a flat roof at the bottom to easy work from. This would be pretty much a cake walk. The flat roof will lose quite a bit and be considerably harder to seal up well than the cement tile tilted roof. You can easily get tile hooks for that tile that have built in flashing etc.
                Don't even consider role flashing, it is not appropriate for solar installs.
                there are other brands but here is one:
                http://www.quickmountpv.com/download...okFlat-web.pdf
                Last edited by ButchDeal; 07-23-2016, 05:59 PM.

            • #9
              I think we are past the point of considering using the tile roof. Despite the fact that it may give slightly better results and may be easier to seal up. Primarily because of the explanation given above but also I have already shelled out $200 for roofing calculations which were done specifically for the flat patio and they have already been submitted to the city. Also I have not mentioned this yet but most of the conduit and wiring is already done as we are using previously installed wiring which used to go to a hot tub which is no longer in use. That already installed wiring and conduit happens to run straight to the patio which is convenient. The conduit contains perfectly (actually oversized) wiring containing 4 wires of #8 THWN which prevents us from running another 50 feet or so of expensive wiring. I am looking at these flashings currently,

              http://unirac.com/wp-content/uploads...LLATION_19.pdf

              I do not believe we will be able to just lay them on top of the shingles though even if we do put sealant around the bottom edges. Judging by how difficult our building and safety department has already been I'm sure they wont let anything slip past no matter how small. I'm thinking of cutting a small slit in the shingles and slipping the flashing under it. Another idea is to just lay it on top of the current shingles and then put new shingles on top of the flashing once it is installed. I can't seem to find any hard cut building code or anything that says explicitly how these flashings can be installed so it seems to be up to the installer.

              Comment


              • ButchDeal
                ButchDeal commented
                Editing a comment
                As I stated you are going to spend more on the mounts for the flat roof. Do you still have roll roofing on it?
                Those flashings are NOT rated for a flat roof. The ups have a minimum slope and only work with shingles which also have a minimum slope. Flat roofs require much more involved sealant.

                here are your low slope components:

                http://www.quickmountpv.com/products...unt.html?cur=3
                Last edited by ButchDeal; 07-23-2016, 09:46 PM.

            • #10
              You will need to periodically get up on the roof and clean your panels. They wont self clean at that pitch and whatever moisture you do get on them will cause a hard mineral buildup on the surface of the glass. I removed a system with that pitch in San Jose once that had so much dirt built up on the modules that dirt was all you could see, like 1/4" of dirt.
              2.2kw Suntech mono, Classic 200, NEW Trace SW4024

              Comment


              • #11
                Originally posted by littleharbor View Post
                You will need to periodically get up on the roof and clean your panels. They wont self clean at that pitch and whatever moisture you do get on them will cause a hard mineral buildup on the surface of the glass. I removed a system with that pitch in San Jose once that had so much dirt built up on the modules that dirt was all you could see, like 1/4" of dirt.
                Cleaning the panels will probably be easier on the flat roof. There is easy access and you can get up and close easy for any maintenance that may need to be done. Also we can add a tilt to the rail system later (I know its supposed to get approved but who cares once its been inspected). It doesn't rain much here but there is lots of wind and dirt in the air.
                I will also post pictures and keep updated on the progress (whenever that may come).

                Comment


                • ButchDeal
                  ButchDeal commented
                  Editing a comment
                  the point is that the tilted ones will better self clean.
                  you can't just add tilt to the flat array as each row will shadow the next.
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